Is a banana a herb?

Is a banana a herb? Is it a fruit? Actually the banana itself is botanically a berry which makes it a fruit.

The banana fruit grows from the banana plant. The banana plant is a herb in fact it is the world's largest herb! Banana plants belong to the Musa genus.

Musa is a genus in the Musaceae family; it includes plantains and bananas. There are more than fifty species of Musa.

Banana plants are generally mistaken for trees. Plantain and bananas plants are in fact not woody.

The stem is a pseudostem which literally means fake stem. The plant's stem is made up of overlapping stems and sheaths. The new growth emerges from the trunk's center.

They can grow high like trees up to thirty feet tall. The leaves can grow up to three point five meters. The base of the stem can grow more than one foot.

Every stem can produce green yellow or red banana before it dies and is replaced by another stem.Each of the bananas is from a flower which matures into a set of ten-twenty bananas called hands which circle the stalk, collectively this is known as a bunch.

Bananas may require maturing for one year after they flower in the field. When the original banana plant dies, it is restored the next season by offshoots from the mother plant.